Present-day cities generate a great quantity of wastes, such as domestic refuse, garbage and industrial wastes, which are not recyclable and are prohibited from being buried, but are combustible. The disposal of such wastes has been typically accomplished by incineration of them. In order to incinerate such wastes, large-scale incineration equipments are installed at designated areas of the cities.
However, the conventional large-scale incineration equipments are problematic in that they are accompanied by excessive costs for installation and operation of them, and generate exhaust gas laden with harmful substances, such as nitrogen oxides and dioxin, the contents of which exceed allowable levels to severely contaminate atmospheric air.
In an effort to overcome the problems experienced in such conventional large-scale incineration equipments, the inventor of this invention proposed “a gas reforming incinerator” as disclosed in Korean Patent Laid-open Publication No. 99-78939. The above gas reforming incinerator comprises an external lower tub, which is formed as a cylindrical body, with a flange provided at each end of the cylindrical body. First and second combustion chambers are provided in the external lower tub. The first combustion chamber has a combustion tub, which is provided with a flange at its lower end and an annular-shaped water supply pipe at its upper end. The second combustion chamber has an air feed tub, which is provided with both a flange at each end thereof and an air inlet hole at the sidewall thereof. A sub-combustion tub is received in the air feed tub. The gas reforming incinerator also has an external upper tub, which has a flange at each end thereof and receives therein a dust collecting tub with a dust collecting means.
The above conventional gas reforming incinerator is a new type of incinerator, which is preferably used for burning up a variety of combustible wastes, such as domestic refuses, waste plastics, waste rubber, waste food, waste tires, medical refuses, waste oil, and livestock wastes, which are not recyclable. This gas reforming incinerator almost completely burns up the wastes through pyrolysis using very high temperature heat of about 1,800° C., thus accomplishing complete combustion of the wastes without generating smoke or odor and thereby almost completely removing harmful gases, such as carbon monoxides, nitrogen oxides, or sooty smoke, from its exhaust gas.
However, such a conventional gas reforming incinerator is problematic in that it only allows inlet air to circulate in its interior for a short period of time even though it has a complex structure for creating the inlet air circulation. In addition, this gas reforming incinerator is inferior in its heat shielding function, thus sometimes causing a user to unexpectedly be burned by heat dissipated from its external surface. Another problem of the conventional gas reforming incinerator resides in that it is necessary to carry out complex processes to completely burn up incompletely burned wastes. Furthermore, the above incinerator undesirably discharges harmful dust along with exhaust gas to the atmosphere.
In an effort to overcome such problems experienced in the conventional gas reforming incinerator, the inventor of this invention also proposed “a high temperature gas reforming cyclo-incinerator” as disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 2000-58235. The above high temperature gas reforming cyclo-incinerator comprises an air cooling structure designed to strongly swirl inlet air in the incinerator prior to discharging the air from the incinerator, thus increasing circulation time of the inlet air in the incinerator, and a heat shielding structure using a heat shielding plate designed to prevent heat dissipation from the external surface of the incinerator and protect a user from being burned by dissipated heat.
The high temperature gas reforming cyclo-incinerator also keeps a fire alive until wastes in the incinerator are completely burned up, feeds fuel to completely incinerate incompletely burned wastes, and collects and temporarily stores dust-laden air generated from the combustion of the wastes prior to filtering the air to remove dust from the air and discharging clean air to the atmosphere.
However, such a conventional high temperature gas reforming cyclo-incinerator is problematic in that dust and other harmful impurities strongly swirl along with air strongly swirling along the inner surface of the incinerator during the operation of the incinerator, thus being discharged to the atmosphere through an exhaust pipe. In addition, it is difficult to control the flow rate of air into the internal lower tub, so that the incineration rate of wastes in the incinerator is not easily controlled. Furthermore, it is impossible for the incinerator to burn up a large quantity of wastes at one time, so that a user of the incinerator is forced to frequently add small quantities of wastes into the incinerator. The conventional high temperature gas reforming cyclo-incinerator is thus inconvenient to the user.